Karen F

I wonder if you have worked with Randy Travis of Fox 5? He did a series on Atlanta Humane sometime in the last year or two, and covered Boggs Mountain and Barking Hound. I live in another part of the country but Travis shows up in my FB feed so I follow his work. Here’s a recent story by him about Barking Hound (his email address is at the top of the page):

Thank you Karen, I do know Randy and was interviewed by him some weeks ago. I was also on the initial board of the organization that convinced the Commissioners to make Rabun county the first no kill open admission shelter in GA ( it suceeded Boggs) The more people Randy hears from the better!

Disclaimer: I have no idea about the reputation of the organization, but it sounds like Blackie is in no danger of being put down.

I do like the idea of a small town having a dog that everybody knows running around, though the reality is that he probably does need a safer permanent home even though he’s done fine for himself for the past few years.

Lorraine Martinez

This from sister-in-law in NM:
The sweet dog in the video below came to the Raton (NM) Humane Society Shelter in Nov of 2011. She had been used as a baby machine and was kept in a carrier having litter after litter. Because of this, she could only drag her self forward because her back legs, particularly the left one just didn’t have enough strength to hold her. She obviously moved around her carrier in a clockwise direction (it must have been a small one). She had multiple mammary tumors, which the Raton Humane Society had removed.

Because she was so frail, and we judged her to be at least 10 yrs. old , it was not expected that she would live, but she was given her chance thanks to the Society. My husband and I took her in, and we named her Mammy which certainly suited her life up to that point. Because she was obviously never or rarely let out of the carrier, which was a darkened environment, her pupils never adapted to closing due to bright light like they would normally do. Consequently, her vision was affected, and sunlight virtually blinds her because her pupils don’t close. Even normal room light affects her sight. In addition to these challenges, she is also deaf to everything but a really loud sound like an athletic whistle being blown right near her.

She was, of course, bone thin, and it took a while to do away with her habit of drinking her urine, and eating her poop. We are just now, a little over a year having passed, starting to win on the housebreaking issue. She now knows it is good and right to wait till she is taken outside….most of the time. For 2-3 months we would take her out and let her sit in the sun, and she would slowly start to move around until finally she was doing a good imitation of walking given the point from which she started.

One day, 3-4 months ago, she started to do short little slow running spurts. What has developed from that, you will see in the video at the link below. We, laugh and cry every time we watch her doing this. We literally have to go out and bring her in to stop her which she has kept up for a record breaking 2+ hours…you won’t believe it knowing what you have read regarding her history. Several months ago we renamed her Bunny.

Please send this to all of your e-mail friends, and encourage them to mark their calendars as a reminder to vote every day the contest goes on Feb. 20 through March 18. The Raton Humane Society deserves the winning monies for giving this precious dog her chance when most shelters would have put her down. They are a no kill rescue which means only when absolutely necessary. This past year they only had to put down 2 dogs when there were no other options. In the past 4 yrs, I don’t believe they have ever had to put down more than 6. The circumstances have to have been extreme for them to out of mercy, send an animal over the rainbow. When you get to the link below just type in the name Bunny or Raton Humane Society to see the video clip.
Please vote……….Jean

Lorraine Martinez

Triangle

Though there are sites that track raw stats, I’m interested in doing a much more through shelter report. Intake, adoption, euthanasia by category, and also policies (TNR, foster homes, low cost spay/neuter, mobile clinics, online photos, hours, etc.)

The goal would be a comparison of policies across shelters and how such policies (or lack of) affect euthanasia and intake rates.

Drafting a survey would be easy enough, but I’m assuming many shelters won’t voluntary give answers. For such shelters it would require researching the information by hand. I would start with community shelters/pounds, and move on to private rescues later.

Does this sound like a worthwhile pursuit? Do you have any tips on getting the information or people to partner with?

Someone already has this very thing underway, but I can’t come up with the name of it right now. Someone who was able to attend last years No Kill conference in DC had told me of it (maybe Valerie Hayes?) There is a website. I had checked it out, and wanted to look into it some more, but I’m so busy, it fell by the wayside. I know the idea is that individuals collect info. on their own local shelters, and provide it to them. Since open admission shelters are funded locally, the locals tend to have the best shot at getting the info. If I come across it again, I’ll post it under one of these open threads for you to find.

I would expect a very poor response rate if you sent a survey out to pet killing facilities. I would suggest skipping the voluntary response part and go straight to FOIA for any taxpayer funded facilities. Are you wanting to focus on a single state or region? If so, you can put word out to applicable places to try and reach advocates who might be interested in helping. I don’t think one person could reasonably expect to accomplish much more beyond that.

Rob

Have an advocacy video link from SoCal. I think this is the way the non-attorneys do it. He might also be the male version of yesbiscuit. “Sick of local shelter managers taking illegal & retaliatory actions against volunteers!” http://youtu.be/evo4uAqrnPY Its making the rounds on FB so you may have seen it already and if not it is worth the time.